Us and Them
by L.M.Lewis
Summary: Who's who?


Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine and I make no profit from them.

Many thanks to Lynn for the beta.

**Author's Note: **This fortnight's episode is "The Crystal Duck", in which Mark's old cellmate, the hapless Teddy Hollins, is (unbeknownst to Hardcastle) bunking with Mark again—this time in the gatehouse. Unbeknownst to Mark, Teddy's also casing the joint. He's in desperate need of some stolen goods to pay off his crooked parole officer, Quinlan. When Teddy robs the heavily judge-infested poker game that Milt and Mark are attending, the host (Judge Gault) suspects Mark is in on it. Mark gets thrown in the slammer as an accomplice, Teddy steps forward to do the right thing, and Mark convinces him to trust Hardcastle. Teddy tells Quinlan that he'll go to the cops if he's not paid off. When Quinlan and his goons try to finish Teddy off, Milt and Mark close in and shut the extortion operation down.

_Teddy: Hey, Skid, it's us against them, and this Hardcastle guy, he's a 'them', remember?_

_Mark: (wistfully) I remember, Teddy._

**Us and Them**

by L.M. Lewis

"So, you comin'?" Hardcastle asked, over a breakfast of eggs and bacon that Sarah had prepared and the two men were shoveling in.

It was Saturday morning, the fourth one that Mark had spent at Gulls Way, and he'd just found out how the judge spent the first Saturday of every month.

"You think playing basketball is somehow going to straighten kids out?" Mark frowned dubiously.

"It's a game; it's got rules and one of 'em is these kids show up to play against some of the local cops. They've already been in trouble, all of 'em, and this is a whole lot easier for them than a month at the county farm."

"Yeah," Mark agreed, "but does it keep them from screwing up again?"

"That's rich," Hardcastle snorted, "coming from the poster boy for recidivism."

"_Two_ lousy convictions," Mark muttered. "And one of them for driving my own car."

The judge rolled his eyes. "Comin'? Or you can just stay here and clear some of that brush down by the fence."

"So," Mark said warily, "it'll be me and the little monsters against you and some cops? Just regular beat cops, huh?"

"Yeah," Hardcastle nodded, "street cops from the neighborhood."

"Okay," Mark said decisively, "I'll come." He scooped up one last forkful of eggs, shoveled it in, swallowed, and said, "I got twenty that says my guys wipe the court with your guys."

The judge seemed to hesitate, from which Mark gathered that the LA's finest might be eating a lot of donuts these days.

"It's okay, Judge." He grinned. "I can win one just for the hell of it now and then."

00000

It would have been one thing to accept a sporting proposition when the outcome was in question, and another thing entirely to rook a guy out of his money when there was no doubt at all that his team was going down. Hardcastle saw this game as far more than a test of skills.

Every one of the kids in question was a hairsbreadth from taking a fall and they all had big issues with authority. This morning's outing with the LAPD was intended to prove to them that they didn't know every trick in the book. Hardcastle had absolutely no intention of losing.

He half-wondered why he'd suckered McCormick onto their team. The obvious reason was that Mark could play guerrilla ball with the best of them, so the thrashing wouldn't be quite as obviously one-sided. But there might have been an inkling of a notion that his latest rehab project had some respect issues to be ironed out, too.

But Hardcastle had a contrary notion as well. It wouldn't be much fun if he somehow managed to squash McCormick's attitude flat. He was relieved when the kid almost single-handedly pulled off an upset, hitting the three-pointers with a precision that gave him something to crow about despite the defeat.

He thought he might even explain it to him later, when the kids were no longer within earshot. He just wasn't sure if McCormick would understand that once in a while losing was more valuable than winning.

00000

The problem was that he actually got along pretty good with the old donkey, better by far than he'd ever thought he would, back during those first couple of weeks skimming the judge's pool and running down the judge's bad guys. Of course there'd been a few times when they'd locked horns, but even those occasions had been a revelation. He could holler and bitch at the guy under the hoops, with no more retaliation than an elbow to the ribs—which he usually returned in spades. He could tease Hardcase mercilessly and get at most a grumble, and occasionally a half-cocked smile.

He'd heard the tone of his own voice when Teddy'd raised the old standard—_us versus them_. He'd agreed but hadn't sounded convinced. Out on the court this morning he'd almost worked up some of the old spirit. After Hardcastle finagled that win, Mark had been on the verge of launching a protest. Instead he'd settled for a little muttered complaining.

It had occurred to him that the old geezer'd been plotting to steal the game out from under those kids' sneakers right from the start. He even thought he understood why. _Better to learn on the court—rather than in the court room—that the system always wins._

But why had he been nominated chief patsy? Was Hardcase trying to send him a message, too? Mark found himself frowning, and the guy in the seat next to him picked a bad moment to finally notice he was lost in thought.

"Whatsamatter?" the judge asked sharply. "I thought you liked poker. And here's your big chance to score against a bunch of judges."

Mark's mind was still half on the day's earlier debacle. "You mean 'score' like I did this morning?"

At least Hardcastle had the decency to look chagrined. "Well, _that_," he said.

He didn't seem to have much more to add and Mark didn't push him. He did, however, make a sudden decision. He intended to make the most of this chance—no holds barred—he was going to score just as big as he could against these old coots. If Hardcastle had something to say about it later on, then they could discuss the judge's technique for winning basketball games at the same time.

00000

Hardcastle wasn't sure if he ought to be angry or pleased. The anger part was a given—McCormick had just confessed to having hidden a fellow-parolee in the gatehouse, the very one who'd just robbed Gault's poker game.

On the other hand, the kid _had_ confessed, and it was obvious that he could have kept the indiscretion to himself. Any sensible, streetwise ex-con would've realized that you _never_ confess. But Hardcastle didn't have time to ponder that one before the next crisis presented itself. The gatehouse had been cleaned out—everything of value that hadn't been nailed down or too heavy to lift.

McCormick seemed just as upset as Sarah. There was no faking that kind of shock, though in the middle of the undeniable he was still trying to make some sense of his so-called friend's betrayal.

Hardcastle could have explained it to him, if he'd had the time and the patience just then. But it seemed crazy to have to clue an ex-con in to the harsher realities of life. Instead, they got on with something they could both agree needed doing—solving the robbery and the burglary before McCormick himself was ensnared in the consequences.

And as usual, even under these very unusual circumstances, they worked pretty well as a team. As much as he didn't want to admit it, spotting that damn knick-knack on Quinlan's desk had been a good piece of detective work by the kid. Whatever it meant, it at least cast a shadow of suspicion that Quinlan had something to do with Hollins' crime spree, that and running into a couple of trigger-happy goons at Teddy's last official address.

It wasn't enough, though, to keep Gault at bay once he knew the prime suspect had been McCormick's former cellmate. Hardcastle had stood by during the arrest. They were the cops—the good guys—acting on a legally sworn out warrant. Hell, he himself had warned Mark that he looked like an accomplice.

But none of that made it any easier to watch.

00000

The whole thing had happened so fast that he'd barely had time to panic. It wasn't as if Hardcastle hadn't warned him. That had been practically the first thing out of the man's mouth after Mark had gone and confessed everything to him—not threats about what _he_ was going to do to him for such a colossal parole violation, only warnings about how it would look to everyone else.

Now he was in the back seat of a cop car, with nothing between him and at least a revocation except Hardcastle's continued good will. And the judge hadn't exactly been buying into Mark's theory that Quinlan was somehow involved in all of this.

_Of course not. Quinlan's one of them. _

As the car pulled away he sank back against the seat, heedless of the handcuffs and no longer trying to search for reassurance on Hardcastle's face. At least this time the fix he'd gotten himself into was entirely his own doing. He'd trusted Teddy. That'd been his first mistake.

The ride to Men's Central was becoming an almost familiar ritual—and the booking was shortened by the fact that his paperwork was painfully up-to-date. _Everything but the address_, Mark thought bitterly. Another set of photos and fingerprints for his collection, and his valuables confiscated and cataloged. He thought he'd be in a cell by dinner time.

But that was where things got a little strange. He figured he'd be questioned sooner or later, but given that it was already late on a Saturday afternoon, later seemed more likely. He wasn't prepared for the sharp left that took him and his guard to the corridor where the interview rooms were.

He swallowed hard as they approached a door. He'd already confessed to Hardcastle. Lying now would be a bad idea, but somehow confessing to the judge had been different, though he would have been hard pressed to explain just how that was so.

The guard reached forward, tapped on the door, and opened it. Mark had already made up his mind. He wasn't going to say another word. He was even holding his breath as the door swung inward.

The guy sitting at the table inside looked impatient. "What the hell took you so long?" Hardcastle snapped.

It wasn't clear if he was addressing the guard or the prisoner, but Mark shrugged and slid into the chair opposite the man, feeling suddenly and inexplicably relieved by being groused at. The guard merely nodded and stepped back out, closing the door with none of the usual institutional clanging.

"I'm heading over to see Gault," Hardcastle said impatiently, "but I thought I'd better stop off here first."

Mark wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to say to this. Here was the one guy he'd already been completely honest with—what more was there to add? But the judge's next comment took him by surprise.

"They're not going to let me post bail, ya know—you already being out on a pass and all."

Beyond the material impossibility of the thing, that Hardcastle had even given it a moment's thought astonished Mark.

"Yeah," he finally said, when he'd mastered his surprise, "even if all they've got is Teddy's prints, a revocation's a pretty sure thing." It astonished him further that he could talk about the certainty of six more months in prison with such calm. "Him camping out with me and all—"

Hardcastle shot him a sharp glance that silenced him abruptly.

"I'd keep my trap shut about that if I were you," the judge said in a low but insistent tone. "No need to hand 'em a ready-made case. For now at least . . ." His voice drifted to a halt as though he were thinking hard. Then he started up again. "The way I see it, I'm your defacto P.O. and your contact with this Hollins guy was on my property and therefore under my supervision . . . nominally, anyway."

Hardcastle sat back in his chair, looking as though he'd settled a knotty problem to his own satisfaction. But then a moment later he went on, "In the meantime, I put in a request for you to be kept out of the general population."

"What?" Mark leaned forward slightly. "You mean PC? _Solitary_?"

Hardcastle nodded complacently. He seemed to have heard only the words, not the tone.

"Uh-uh. No way." Mark shook his head anxiously. "Who _knows _how long I'll be in here—"

"Do I hafta remind you that Cody and his goons finally got extradited back to LA county? There's three of 'em right here in this facility. And that hit man, Deseau, he's in here, too, with a couple of _his_ henchmen." All the complacency was gone from Hardcastle's face.

Mark drew himself up a little straighter. Cody was never far from his mind, though Deseau had entirely slipped it. But neither was much of a concern right now.

"If you put me in PC how the hell am I going to be any use? At least in the regular cell block I can ask around, see if anybody else has had trouble with Teddy's PO"

Hardcastle was frowning. "I don't like it. There's one of you and at least six or seven of them."

"Nobody knows I'm here. This might not be the Big House, but it's pretty big anyway."

"I dunno . . ."

"Just give me a chance."

Mark couldn't quite believe what was coming out of his mouth. It couldn't just be that a stay in the general population was suddenly looking so much better by comparison with the alternative. He had a suspicion that his motives went far deeper than that. It was at least partly what he'd said to Hardcastle in the gatehouse, right after they'd discovered the robbery. _"If there's any way I can make this up to you_."

He'd meant it. He didn't want this mistake to make a mess of everything. That stupid knick-knack on Quinlan's desk had been a ray of hope. If there were some kind of shenanigans going on involving Teddy's PO, Hardcastle would want to know. Mark knew that for a certainty, even though he wasn't quite sure _how_ he knew.

"Hey," he frowned, "how come when we told Quinlan about Teddy he didn't just phone in to the cops for a pick-up?" He gave Hardcastle a penetrating stare. "That's pretty fishy, huh?

The judge shrugged.

"And you . . . you didn't call the cops on Teddy either." Mark's frown had turned into something more neutral but equally pensive. He quirked one eyebrow up. "You _believed_ me."

"Maybe," Hardcastle admitted. "The duck still seems pretty circumstantial, but circumstances always make me a little itchy."

"Itchy, huh? You should try sleeping on the blankets in this place." He looked around at the grim little room, suddenly remembering just where he was.

"You're sure you don't want protective custody?"

Mark shook his head.

"Okay," Hardcastle said reluctantly, "your call." He stood and headed for the door, giving it two sharp raps. "I'll go have a talk with Gault, but I can't promise you much." He sighed wearily. "I _told _ya—you shouldn'ta hogged the dip."

00000

It hadn't been even twelve hours later, just long enough for one trip to the common area and an enlightening talk with a disgruntled con who knew exactly what Quinlan's game was. Mark had been back in his cell, trying to figure out how to get the news to Hardcastle when he was sent for.

No word on what it was about. Most likely it'd be the parole board, exercising its prerogative to revoke rather than waiting for the lengthier process to reconvict him for being a patsy. Mark felt his teeth start to grind every time he thought of how Teddy had played him for a sucker. He was going to kill the guy . . . if Quinlan's goons didn't get to him first.

That thought sobered him some. He went quietly with his guard—no questions or smart comments. Once again he was taken by surprise. This time they didn't head for the interview rooms but continued on past there and all the way to the processing-out area.

No Hardcastle in sight, and the clerk was a burly, no-neck guy in his late fifties who couldn't give him any reason for his good fortune other than the obvious.

"The charges were dropped."

Mark didn't ask why, since doing so might somehow imply that there'd been an error. He took his envelope of personal items and his bag of clothes and signed quickly before the authorities could change their minds. He found a bench in an out of the way corner and shucked his county denims for his own familiar clothes. He'd barely finished that task when he noticed a cop over by the clerk. It was evident that inquiries were being made, and the end result was a finger pointing in his direction.

His heart sank. It really had been a mistake—he was sure of it now. The cop was striding toward him in a non-nonsense way.

"McCormick?"

He nodded wordlessly.

"I'm your ride," the officer said.

Mark thought maybe he hadn't heard right, but it had sounded a lot like "ride".

"My ride where?"

The cop stared at him for a moment and then pulled a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket, glancing at it casually. "101 PCH—that okay with you?"

There was just the slightest sneer to that last part. Mark couldn't blame him, under the circumstances. Anywhere had to be better than his present surroundings and right now Gulls Way sounded like heaven.

"Yeah, _yeah_. Thanks. That's fine."

He rode in the front seat this time and that did a lot for his morale. Each mile between him and Men's Central made his release seem that much more real, maybe even permanent. By the time they pulled into the drive he was almost gleeful, but that emotion smashed up on the rocky shoals of anger when he spotted Teddy standing alongside Hardcastle.

But that didn't last, either. Teddy launched himself into one of his effusive performances and all Mark could see was what would happen to a guy like that if he ended up back in jail without coming clean with Hardcastle. It all came down to one thing.

"I trust that man." He hooked his thumb in Hardcastle's direction, not even caring if he was overheard. He said it because he believed it, and Teddy, against every rule in the ex-cons' book, decided to go along with his crazy new faith.

00000

Hardcastle hadn't been trying to overhear but the two guys' idea of a closed conference wasn't all that conducive to privacy. He couldn't help but hear McCormick's stand.

It startled him, both the statement and the force behind it. This didn't sound like the same guy who'd sheepishly admitted he couldn't tell his pals he got along okay with a judge. And Teddy, who'd seemed just as air-brained and feckless as McCormick had described him, finally found his spine.

After that it was only a matter of setting up Quinlan. Who in a million years would suspect Teddy of being capable of a sting? The whole thing worked like a well-oiled clock, except for the part where Quinlan had made a dash for it, crashed his car, and then disappeared into a yard full of damaged buses.

This should have been the point where Tonto retired to the rear and waited for the cavalry to show up. After all, the kid was unarmed except for a fairly decent left cross. Hardcastle had been surprised at the anger he felt, seeing Quinlan drawing down on McCormick. If the lucky shot he'd used to disarm the man had been less lucky and more damaging, he wouldn't have minded all that much.

00000

Mark hadn't given it all that much thought before taking off after the rogue PO. He should have—just because Quinlan hadn't had time to shoot Teddy, didn't mean he wasn't armed.

As he stood there, facing a man who was pointing a gun at him, he had an absent thought—_this is happening a lot lately_. There wasn't time for anything else before a shot rang out. Not from Quinlan's gun, fortunately—that went flying to the right as the man clutched his arm in dismay.

It was probably overkill to punch the guy's lights out, but the opportunity to slug a PO—even one who wasn't your own—didn't present itself every day. Mark only had a moment to think about the cosmic justice of it all before he swung.

00000

"You never hit a guy in the jaw if you can avoid it," Hardcastle said philosophically as he opened the ice bag and fed the contents of the ice tray into it. He added a splash of water from the sink, twisted the cap back on, and shook the whole thing a couple of times to settle the contents.

"Here," he said, handing it over. "It's less messy than sticking your hand in water."

Mark nodded as he accepted the bag. His left hand had swollen considerably in the time it had taken Hardcastle to deal with the preliminaries of the Quinlan arrest. He was just glad they were finally home.

_Home_.

He smiled slightly. That was buried in a hiss as the ice bag came to rest on bruised knuckles.

"Hey," he said, settling back in his seat at the kitchen table, "thanks for letting Teddy crash in the gatehouse tonight. Quinlan clocked him pretty good and somebody ought to keep an eye on him."

"Hah." The judge had the fridge door open now. He was rustling around inside and his voice was muffled by the enclosure. "How you gonna know if he starts acting goofy—I mean, how'll it be any different than usual?"

He straightened up and turned, clutching the makings of ham sandwiches in one hand and mayo jar in the other.

"What day is it?" Mark asked suddenly. "Sunday, isn't it?"

Hardcastle nodded as he set his fixings on the table and reached for a loaf of bread.

"Long weekend, seemed like more than two days, didn't it?" Mark didn't add that the night he'd spent in the lock-up had been at least a couple of weeks in itself.

He watched Hardcastle spread the mayonnaise. He was still thinking about his little field trip to the LA County jail. He might have been thinking about Teddy, too. A question suddenly occurred to him. His brow furrowed. He probably should have kept it to himself, but curiosity overcame prudence.

"How come . . ." Mark began, but then hesitated briefly.

Hardcastle glanced up from arranging ham slices and now fixed him with a querying look.

"Well," Mark sighed, "I was wondering just now, how come Gault slapped me in the slammer—do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars—just for _knowing_ the guy who committed the robbery, but when my man Teddy _confessed_ to the crime, he got out on the say-so of a certain retired judge. What gives with that?"

"Hmm." Hardcastle plastered the lid on the first sandwich and passed it over. He went back to work on number two, and for a moment it didn't look like he was going to come up with an answer.

But that sandwich was quickly assembled. The judge hooked a chair and pulled it out for himself, sitting down heavily.

"Kind of a long story," he finally said. He picked up his sandwich and took a substantial bite, then chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before he continued.

"When Teddy showed up back here—to leave you a note or something—I told him where you were, see?"

Mark saw. He nodded. He suspected Hardcastle was editing out some of the more florid details of their encounter, but Teddy hadn't ended up with any visible bruises.

"And as soon as he heard what had happened he volunteered to confess, sign a statement and everything, if it would get you out." There was no mistaking the tone of amazement in Hardcastle's recollection of that offer. "Who'd've guessed a guy like that would have that in him?"

Mark just smiled. He was completely willing to forget that he'd had a couple of moments of doubt about Teddy himself over the past two days.

Hardcastle drew himself up into a shrug and added, "Anyway, I got him to repeat what he'd said for Gault—the part about him acting alone and you not being in on it."

"Okay," Mark said, "that's how you got me out, but how come Gault didn't just reissue the arrest warrant with Teddy's name in the blank?"

"Oh, well, Teddy didn't hog the dip, now, did he?"

Mark made a face.

Hardcastle grinned right back at him. "It might've been because I explained to Gault what Quinlan was up to. Old Winslow may be a pain in the butt, but he's a straight shooter in his own way, and it doesn't take a whiz at poker to know the odds of Teddy surviving in the lock-up long enough to testify against Quinlan were slim to none. Even Gault doesn't think robbery ought to be a capital offense."

"Just dip-hogging, huh?" Mark said with chagrin.

"Hey, you were the one trying to convince me you didn't need protective custody."

"True." The chagrin fell away, what was left was a slightly bemused look. "I guess Gault's not all bad."

"Teddy seems like a pretty good kid, too," Hardcastle admitted.

"He is, Judge," Mark said, and then added, with sincerity, "You'll just have to trust me on that."


End file.
